September 17, 2024 • 25 mins
This tart, fragrant citrus fruit brings depth to everything from condiments to cocktails to capybara baths. Anney and Lauren dip into the botany and history of yuzu.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to save your production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren vull lah Bah, and
today we have an episode for you about zu.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Yes, Yes, Was there any particular reason this one was
on your mind? Lord?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
It's another one that's been on the list for a
while and a produce item was up in the rotation,
And I personally love this stuff. It is definitely one
of the ways that you can get me to order
anything off of a menu. I'm like, yes, if that
has usu in it, I'm interested in tasting it because
that is going to be tart and floral and weird,
(00:45):
and I'm into it.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Yeah, sounds right, That sounds right. Ah, I don't. I
feel like I've had uzu in cocktails For some reason,
I've always thought yuzuo was much just a sweeter thing.
I don't know why.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
A lot of the time it's it's paired with a
lot of sugar. So absolutely, that's and I'll talk about
it in a minute, But certainly the way that I
was introduced to it was through like very sweet Korean
tea style preparations.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
So okay, okay, Well, you can see our other episodes
that we've done on different citrus.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Fruits, sure, lime, lemon, recently orange.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
J Yeah, I don't know. I think we've done all
of those things weird. I know we really are chicking
off some boxes. We are we are, But I guess
that brings us to our question, sure zoo, what is it? Well?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
U Zu is a type of small citrus fruit with
tart juice and a bittersweet rind. It looks and tastes
like you squashed together a bitter orange and a lemon
into a cute, little, roundish package, like a small lemon
or lime. It's not usually eaten out of hand, but
rather the juice and even more so the rind, are
(02:15):
used to season both sweet and savory foods and drinks,
or cooked into sweetened preserves, which are themselves often used
to prepare hot and cold beverages, or processed into candies
and sodas, or used to make condiments like like ponzu sauce.
The juice is very acidic to sour and bright, and
the rind has this very pleasant citrus floral scent and yeah,
(02:40):
bitter sweet taste that's both bright and soft at the
same time. It brings It brings a little bit of
a sort of a bunch of different citrus fruit qualities
to the mix, somewhere between like a piny grapefruit, a grapefruit,
We've done that one too, and like a fruity mandarin
and like a warm herbal bergama. It just brings, it
(03:02):
brings a lot, like a delightful lot for something so small,
like uh, like Christian Chenna with or I don't know,
like a like like a really excited corky puppy. Oh,
you're very tidy, but this is great, a bright spot
(03:23):
of joy. Sure, yeah, don eat Christian Jenna with their
corky puppies.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
No, that's not what we're advocating here.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Uh, okay, So you zoo is a natural hybrid. It's
thought of other kinds of citrus. We're not totally sure,
but genetic signs point to the mandarin orange and a
popeta pepeta being this category of citrus trees that do
not grow tasty fruit, but are still nicely and sometimes
(04:01):
used as ornamental plants or as rootstock for other citrus.
That rootstock thing is common in fruit trees. Generally you
graft like resilient roots onto the type of fruiting branch
that you want in order to improve the fruit's chance
of survival. User trees are actually used for this, sometimes themselves.
(04:21):
The specific Popaeda that researchers think was involved is called
the ichang papeta. It's super hardy and has been used
to create other citrus hybrids, definitely on purpose more modernly.
More on that in the history section.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Anyway.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
User trees are grown to be on the small side,
like less than twenty feet tall, that's about six meters.
They take fifteen plus years to fruit when they're grown
from seed. They can be grafted to make it go
a little bit quicker. But yeah, they had these small,
pretty leaves and sharp thorns, like a lot of citrus does,
and they're evergreen. They will bloom with these wee white flowers,
(04:58):
which if pollinated, will develop into a plump like slightly
squished sphere. It'll have a thick, pebbled outer rind that's
dark green when it's unripe, and will ripe into a
bright yellow sometimes almost orangish school bus yellow in color.
They're just a couple inches in diameter, maybe five centimeters,
like a yellower, bumpier, slightly rounder mandarin orange. Yeah, they
(05:22):
ripen in late fall to early winter, and both the
green fruit and the ripe fruit are used. The rind
contains sacks with a lot of very fragrant oils which
give it that color. The oils contain compounds that are
strongly citrusy, with some herbal, warm, fruity, fresh and piny
(05:42):
notes in there too. Inside that outer rind there is
a thin layer of spongy white pith, and then inside
that there's the pulp, which are these wee sacs that
are just single drop packets of juice themselves in case
together in sections, each with their own thin membrane, arranged
like a like slices of a three D pie. Not
(06:02):
that pies aren't three D, but you get what I mean. Yeah.
The juice is a pale yellow and very acid tart.
They're not as juicy as your average lemon, as they
tend to have a lot of seeds mixed in with
that pulp. The peel can be used fresh or dried
in all kinds of sweet or savory dishes and both
(06:25):
hot and cold drinks. The juice can be used fresh
or frozen likewise, you know, in hot pots, soups and
stews too. Season rice instead of vinegar in a marinade
or sauce for seafood or other proteins, to flavor ices
or ice creams or custards or candies. You can put
it in lemonades and cocktails. You can use it to
(06:47):
flavor teas, soft drinks, beers, soju, other beverages. You can
use it as a garnish or in condiments. You know, however,
how are you citrus?
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Yeah? People use it all kinds of ways. Oh, yeah,
it is.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
It is pretty rare to find the fruit sold fresh
outside of areas where it's grown, which are primarily Japan, Korea,
and like subtropical parts of China. If y'all do have
experience with using it fresh, please write in Heck, I
love citrus. I've never done this before and I'm so
curious about it. They are grown a little bit in California,
(07:26):
Australia and New Zealand, Southern Europe a couple other places.
But you can find that the processed juice and either
dried or frozen peel available online or sometimes in like
East Asian markets. Yeah, the fruit is also made into
marmalade type preserves, you know, with the juice and peel
a bit more better than orange marmalade. In Korean cuisine,
(07:49):
it's often made a little bit thinner than jam, more
more porable, like like honey maybe, and sometimes with the
honey in it, intended for mixing into hot water for
warm beverage. The Korean term for the fruit is yuja,
though the English translation on labeling is often citron. I've
also seen yuja marmalade served in cold drinks, like in
(08:10):
soju cocktails and then condiments. Yes, as I said, Uzi
frequently is the citrus element in ponzu sauce, which is
a tart, savory vinegar based sauce often mixed with soy
sauce and served as a dip in Japanese cuisine. Also
in Japanese cuisine, there is a salty, sour hot chili
paste condiment made with yzou zest called yuzu kosho. That
(08:34):
one's really powerful and super good. Shout out to my
cousin Jess for giving me some one Christmas. I don't
think she listens to the podcast, but shout out nonetheless.
I've seen the hollowed out like like half rines sometimes
used as a serving dish or cup. That sounds really
fun I like, yeah, yeah, And the oils are also
(08:57):
used in the cosmetics industry to bring like a nice
sent to various products, and the whole fruit are used
in like like public baths, like hot spring baths in Japan,
especially around the winter solstice. Lots more in that.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Yes, well, what about the nutrition.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Again, you're not really eating these out of hand. I
mean citrus. Citrus is good.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
For you, you.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Know, once it's been made into marmalade or is flavoring
pastry cream or whatever. You know, that's a little bit
of a different thing. I will say that yuzuo has
been used and studied for potential medicinal properties. But saber motto.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Always. Now, we've got a couple of mottos we need
to make all this this is okay. Primary motto, yes,
the primary one.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
That's about how nutrition is complicated, bodies are complicated. Before
ingesting a medicinal amount of anything, you should consult a
medical professional who is not us.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Yes, we should have like subset one or motto. Yeah,
we'll figure it out, we'll feel well, yeah, we do
have some numbers for you. We do.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Japan produces the most yzoo, about twenty seven thousand tons
a year. France and the US import the most, mostly
in juice form. The world record for the largest yuzubath
was achieved in twenty twenty two. So there's this chain
of public baths called montano U that had been trying
(10:24):
to break the record for a decade, and they got
locals around Yokohama to donate fruit and they wound up
for this record breaking bath with four thousand, five hundred
and seven yuzuo that is around one three hundred and
fifty kilos of fruit or three thousand pounds.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Now, people, did people get in this? I hope so?
Speaker 2 (10:50):
I hope so if not, that is silly.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
That's a shame. That would be a real shame.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
I hope people. Corgis everyone and shadow with yeah everyone, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
It sounds lovely. It does.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
It does also sounds sounding lovely. There are a couple
yuzu festivals every year, specifically in Koti Prefecture in Japan,
where fifty five percent of the country's usu comes from.
Those festivals both happen in late October to November in
line with the first harvest of the season. One in
Umaji celebrates the first juicing of the season and then
(11:36):
one in Kitagala honors this village leader from the mid
eighteen hundreds who like really encouraged yzu cultivation and its
use as a preservative and a seasoning that could be
produced locally as opposed to other things like like rice,
vinegar or miso that had to be imported from other areas.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
That sounds cool, both of those so cool, we do.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Oh my goodness, if, oh, if anyone has any experience
with any of this, please write in.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Oh, please please do. But in the meantime, we have
quite a history for you.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
We do, touching on several of these points in fact,
and we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from a quick break forward from
our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. Okay. So,
historians believe that yu zoo originated in East Asia. Some
speculate that it first grew in Korea that made its
way to China then over to Japan about a thousand
years ago. Others argue that it more likely originated in
China near the Yangsee River.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Either way, it also arrived in Japan pretty quickly.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah, yes, And like you said earlier, Lauren, it most
likely was the result of cross pollination of the mandarin
orange in the echung papeda via insects. A lot of
research into this very fascinating. Some speculate that ancient text
out of China detailing the cultivation and growth of something
(13:12):
called you yu actually refers to uzu. In the two
hundreds BCE, a Chinese text describes yuzu as something sweet
and sometimes sour, but also makes clear that there was
some confusion about what was being called you and that
there was at least two fruits going by the name
at the time, so still still a little confusion early on.
(13:37):
Yep In an eleven eight CE herbal out of China,
uzu is called by the name still used for it
in China today, So that indicates that they had kind
of arrived at what what about zoo at that point?
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yeah, The word uzuo is Japanese, though both the Japanese
and Korean root from an older Chinese term for the
free Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Yeah, fun with linguistics. Around thirteen hundred years ago, yuzu
was really flourishing in parts of Japan. According to some sources,
yuzu was largely cultivated for medicinal purposes at first there,
but over time, people started to really like the aromatics
of it. They liked how it tasted, so they started
(14:23):
using it in other ways, including cooking.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yeah, ponzu sauce is a little tricky to track down
the history of but it seems to have developed during
the edolp period, like the sixteen to eighteen hundreds when
the Dutch had a settlement in Nagasaki. And we think
that based on the etymology of panzu, which combines this
old Dutch word for punch like the drink pond with
(14:48):
a Japanese term for vinegar su sore. More mysteries with etymology.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Mysteries with etymology. I love it. Around the same time,
the winter solstice tradition of a yuzu bath is believed
to have originated. Yes, in the same period with the
introduction of the public bath, people believed that usu baths
promoted blood circulation and other health benefits. Honestly, they just
(15:18):
sound really nice to me. Yep. Yes. And then in
nineteen eighty two, some employees working at a zoo in
Japan noticed some of the capaberas huddled together in warm
water while their enclosure was being cleaned, and that gave
the people working there the idea to have a usu
bath for the animals during the winter. Yes, open to
(15:44):
public viewing. Oh yes, yes. It was a popular event,
and then other zoos started doing it. Beginning in twenty twenty,
Zoo started sharing videos of this online that racked up
millions of views, and of course that struck they did.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Oh yeah, for like, give me literally any serotonin.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Yes, Oh, capbera is in a uzu bath.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Yeah, lovely because and honestly, like capaberras and yuzu both
look like sort of like squished spheres a little bit,
so like they have this sort of similar shape and
like capa beeras are so chill to begin with.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Oh that sounds really wonderful.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Yeah, it's definitely and I've definitely seen some like little
like cartoons about it on the internet.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Anyway. Uh.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
The aforementioned village leader who encouraged cultivation of yuzu around
the mid eighteen hundreds, like probably around eighteen sixty, was
in fact a samurai, one naka Oka Shintaro, who later
helped overthrow the Tokugawa Shogunate.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
So there you go. Wow, yep, these these episodes go places,
They go places. Yes, And speaking of frank In Mayor,
an official from the USDA, discovered yuzuo while exploring in
China in nineteen fourteen.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Discovered in scare quotes, I mean it was already people
already knew it was there, but he ran across it.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
And furthermore, yes, it is that mayor, like the guy
that they named the Mayor Lemon after. He was a
spotanist who went on these plant collecting expeditions around Asia.
That's a separate, separate episode, possibly a separate podcast. Really
interesting guy anyway.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Yes, yes, well, he called yuzu the Kanzu orange. He
sent some seeds of the plant back to the US. However,
in nineteen twenty two, it was discovered that this orange
was the same as yuzu previously brought into the US
by Japanese immigrants for cooking. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
That being said, though, wild varieties of yuzu were being
discovered in China as late as nineteen thirteen. Wow. Cool, Yeah,
there's a lot of them.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Ko Chi Prefecture didn't really get into yuzu production again,
they are currently they make like over half of the
yuzu that Japan produces. They didn't really get into it
at all until the cedar logging industry started to decline
on their island. In the nineteen sixties, people started cultivating
(18:26):
local citrus like the yuzu, and it really took off.
A lot of yuzu was originally planted along the decommissioned
logging railway land because it was available and extensive, like
over two hundred and fifty kilometers of track, the longest
in western Japan when it was built in nineteen twenty nine.
(18:47):
And yeah, around like kind of right around that is
where a lot of the groves still are today. In
the nineteen seventies they did further get into like bottling
and selling yuzu based product and also agritourism.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Yes, and in recent years, yuzuo has seen growing popularity
outside of Asian communities where it has long been used.
A two thousand and three New York Times article tauted
it as a prized ingredient for chefs and they really
highlighted the scent loved it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Yeah. Around that same time, this three star Michelin restaurant
in Spain, l W was super excited about y zoo,
giving it further attention, and it was probably cross pollination there.
On the New York Times and all this attention. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Yes, and in the US it became something of a
darling in the burgeoning craft cocktail scene. It is something
I have seen a lot in in craft cocktails. Oh, certainly.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Yeah, it's tasty.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
It's yeah, it's good. A lot of cocktails have a
good citrus element. U zoo. There you go, here you go. Yes, well,
listeners as always, if you have more experience when it
comes to use you, if you have recipes, if you
have your favorite things, any festivals that we miss.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Oh yeah, if you've been to a Uzu bath, yes,
you have a Corgi I don't know.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Yeah, Serotonin's always good. Oh my goodness, yes, please write
in yes. But that is what we have to say
about Uzu for now. It is.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
We do already have some listener mail for you, though,
when we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from one more quick break for
a word from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes,
thank you, and we're back with school. He refreshing sour,
(21:04):
I have refreshing and both, yeah in a sour way. Yeah,
puckery citrus is generally like that.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, and wrote I've been going through a backlog of
older episodes and was struck by the Aside and your
Salisbury Stake episode about calling Docson's Liberty dogs. The Paw
Patrol movie, which came out the following year, introduced a
docs and character named Liberty. I think someone was making
(21:35):
a very obscure joke and thought you'd enjoy the last
I love it. There you go. Yeah, I bet they were.
We were just talking about SpongeBob. But a lot of
these kids shows there's there's in jokes, djo Oh absolutely, yeah,
(22:00):
big fit.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
I love it every time Pop Patrol or Bluey comes
up on this show.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
I feel like it's a lot.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah, and especially since that is not media that either
of us have consumed.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
No, but I enjoy learning about it.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Listeners, Yeah, and they're just ubiquitous.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
So right, Okay, Mark wrote, I'm a Newish listener enjoying
your back catalog and your Mustard episode made me think
you might be interested in the Northern Italian dish Mustarta.
It's kind of like chutney in a rough sense, and
it consists of candied fruits, quinces, apples, grapes, cherries, citrus,
et cetera. In sweetened mustard flavored syrup. My father is
(22:44):
from Amelia, Romagna, and I grew up in Italy and
the USA with mustarda around the house, eating it along
with boiled meats. But the combo of sharp mustard and
sweet fruit seems to really bewilder most people who aren't
from northern Italy like that area. Lombardia ven a'tah mustarda
di cremona is the easiest kind of fine. In the USA,
(23:04):
it's a little more mustardy, with transparent syrup and small
whole fruits, but there are others with different textures and
balances of sharp to sweet. In general, mustard like we
think of it in the US or France is pretty
rare in Italy, and in Italian it's called senepe so dijon.
Mustard is called senepe de dijon. So the similarity between
(23:26):
the words mustarta and mustard might cause a funny surprise
for some people. Thank you for your awesome show, and
I'm looking forward to someday hearing Annie's D and D
gaming podcast.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
I want to mess. That would be a fun Oh.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
A wonderful miss Oh it's so chaotic. Oh my goodness,
I have had mustarta ooh oh yeah. I think it
is part of like a charcoterie situation out at various
rest I've had a number of times around Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
It sounds good to me, like I can understand if
for people who are accustomed to having it on like
sandwiches or like in a very specific way here in
the US, that this could sound a little like oh
with fruit, with fruit a sweet element, what I know.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
No, to me, that sounds great, sure, And I do
think that that some like yellow mustards, like frenches, are
a little like do have like a sweet element.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
To them any bit?
Speaker 2 (24:26):
So, so I don't think I mean also, I just
I mean as I as I said in our mustard episode,
I just really like mustard. Yeah, that's why I chose
it as my birthday episode that year, and it was
like for your birthday, what do you want to talk about?
I was like, mustard, Oh yeah, that's great. And I
(24:50):
do also love combinations of sweet with other flavors that
but yeah, like we're getting into in the US, but
I think are a lot common and other quiz gains.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Yeah, yes, I enjoy it too well. Thank you to
both of these listeners for writing in if you would
like to write to us, you can Our email is
hello at savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
When we are also on social media, you can find
us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at saver pod and
we do hope to hear from you. Savor is production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, you can visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our superproducers Dylan
Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and
(25:37):
we hope that lots more good things are coming your
way
Hello, and welcome to save your production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren vull lah Bah, and
today we have an episode for you about zu.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Yes, Yes, Was there any particular reason this one was
on your mind? Lord?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
It's another one that's been on the list for a
while and a produce item was up in the rotation,
And I personally love this stuff. It is definitely one
of the ways that you can get me to order
anything off of a menu. I'm like, yes, if that
has usu in it, I'm interested in tasting it because
that is going to be tart and floral and weird,
(00:45):
and I'm into it.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Yeah, sounds right, That sounds right. Ah, I don't. I
feel like I've had uzu in cocktails For some reason,
I've always thought yuzuo was much just a sweeter thing.
I don't know why.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
A lot of the time it's it's paired with a
lot of sugar. So absolutely, that's and I'll talk about
it in a minute, But certainly the way that I
was introduced to it was through like very sweet Korean
tea style preparations.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
So okay, okay, Well, you can see our other episodes
that we've done on different citrus.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Fruits, sure, lime, lemon, recently orange.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
J Yeah, I don't know. I think we've done all
of those things weird. I know we really are chicking
off some boxes. We are we are, But I guess
that brings us to our question, sure zoo, what is it? Well?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
U Zu is a type of small citrus fruit with
tart juice and a bittersweet rind. It looks and tastes
like you squashed together a bitter orange and a lemon
into a cute, little, roundish package, like a small lemon
or lime. It's not usually eaten out of hand, but
rather the juice and even more so the rind, are
(02:15):
used to season both sweet and savory foods and drinks,
or cooked into sweetened preserves, which are themselves often used
to prepare hot and cold beverages, or processed into candies
and sodas, or used to make condiments like like ponzu sauce.
The juice is very acidic to sour and bright, and
the rind has this very pleasant citrus floral scent and yeah,
(02:40):
bitter sweet taste that's both bright and soft at the
same time. It brings It brings a little bit of
a sort of a bunch of different citrus fruit qualities
to the mix, somewhere between like a piny grapefruit, a grapefruit,
We've done that one too, and like a fruity mandarin
and like a warm herbal bergama. It just brings, it
(03:02):
brings a lot, like a delightful lot for something so small,
like uh, like Christian Chenna with or I don't know,
like a like like a really excited corky puppy. Oh,
you're very tidy, but this is great, a bright spot
(03:23):
of joy. Sure, yeah, don eat Christian Jenna with their
corky puppies.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
No, that's not what we're advocating here.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Uh, okay, So you zoo is a natural hybrid. It's
thought of other kinds of citrus. We're not totally sure,
but genetic signs point to the mandarin orange and a
popeta pepeta being this category of citrus trees that do
not grow tasty fruit, but are still nicely and sometimes
(04:01):
used as ornamental plants or as rootstock for other citrus.
That rootstock thing is common in fruit trees. Generally you
graft like resilient roots onto the type of fruiting branch
that you want in order to improve the fruit's chance
of survival. User trees are actually used for this, sometimes themselves.
(04:21):
The specific Popaeda that researchers think was involved is called
the ichang papeta. It's super hardy and has been used
to create other citrus hybrids, definitely on purpose more modernly.
More on that in the history section.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Anyway.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
User trees are grown to be on the small side,
like less than twenty feet tall, that's about six meters.
They take fifteen plus years to fruit when they're grown
from seed. They can be grafted to make it go
a little bit quicker. But yeah, they had these small,
pretty leaves and sharp thorns, like a lot of citrus does,
and they're evergreen. They will bloom with these wee white flowers,
(04:58):
which if pollinated, will develop into a plump like slightly
squished sphere. It'll have a thick, pebbled outer rind that's
dark green when it's unripe, and will ripe into a
bright yellow sometimes almost orangish school bus yellow in color.
They're just a couple inches in diameter, maybe five centimeters,
like a yellower, bumpier, slightly rounder mandarin orange. Yeah, they
(05:22):
ripen in late fall to early winter, and both the
green fruit and the ripe fruit are used. The rind
contains sacks with a lot of very fragrant oils which
give it that color. The oils contain compounds that are
strongly citrusy, with some herbal, warm, fruity, fresh and piny
(05:42):
notes in there too. Inside that outer rind there is
a thin layer of spongy white pith, and then inside
that there's the pulp, which are these wee sacs that
are just single drop packets of juice themselves in case
together in sections, each with their own thin membrane, arranged
like a like slices of a three D pie. Not
(06:02):
that pies aren't three D, but you get what I mean. Yeah.
The juice is a pale yellow and very acid tart.
They're not as juicy as your average lemon, as they
tend to have a lot of seeds mixed in with
that pulp. The peel can be used fresh or dried
in all kinds of sweet or savory dishes and both
(06:25):
hot and cold drinks. The juice can be used fresh
or frozen likewise, you know, in hot pots, soups and
stews too. Season rice instead of vinegar in a marinade
or sauce for seafood or other proteins, to flavor ices
or ice creams or custards or candies. You can put
it in lemonades and cocktails. You can use it to
(06:47):
flavor teas, soft drinks, beers, soju, other beverages. You can
use it as a garnish or in condiments. You know, however,
how are you citrus?
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Yeah? People use it all kinds of ways. Oh, yeah,
it is.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
It is pretty rare to find the fruit sold fresh
outside of areas where it's grown, which are primarily Japan, Korea,
and like subtropical parts of China. If y'all do have
experience with using it fresh, please write in Heck, I
love citrus. I've never done this before and I'm so
curious about it. They are grown a little bit in California,
(07:26):
Australia and New Zealand, Southern Europe a couple other places.
But you can find that the processed juice and either
dried or frozen peel available online or sometimes in like
East Asian markets. Yeah, the fruit is also made into
marmalade type preserves, you know, with the juice and peel
a bit more better than orange marmalade. In Korean cuisine,
(07:49):
it's often made a little bit thinner than jam, more
more porable, like like honey maybe, and sometimes with the
honey in it, intended for mixing into hot water for
warm beverage. The Korean term for the fruit is yuja,
though the English translation on labeling is often citron. I've
also seen yuja marmalade served in cold drinks, like in
(08:10):
soju cocktails and then condiments. Yes, as I said, Uzi
frequently is the citrus element in ponzu sauce, which is
a tart, savory vinegar based sauce often mixed with soy
sauce and served as a dip in Japanese cuisine. Also
in Japanese cuisine, there is a salty, sour hot chili
paste condiment made with yzou zest called yuzu kosho. That
(08:34):
one's really powerful and super good. Shout out to my
cousin Jess for giving me some one Christmas. I don't
think she listens to the podcast, but shout out nonetheless.
I've seen the hollowed out like like half rines sometimes
used as a serving dish or cup. That sounds really
fun I like, yeah, yeah, And the oils are also
(08:57):
used in the cosmetics industry to bring like a nice
sent to various products, and the whole fruit are used
in like like public baths, like hot spring baths in Japan,
especially around the winter solstice. Lots more in that.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Yes, well, what about the nutrition.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Again, you're not really eating these out of hand. I
mean citrus. Citrus is good.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
For you, you.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Know, once it's been made into marmalade or is flavoring
pastry cream or whatever. You know, that's a little bit
of a different thing. I will say that yuzuo has
been used and studied for potential medicinal properties. But saber motto.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Always. Now, we've got a couple of mottos we need
to make all this this is okay. Primary motto, yes,
the primary one.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
That's about how nutrition is complicated, bodies are complicated. Before
ingesting a medicinal amount of anything, you should consult a
medical professional who is not us.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Yes, we should have like subset one or motto. Yeah,
we'll figure it out, we'll feel well, yeah, we do
have some numbers for you. We do.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Japan produces the most yzoo, about twenty seven thousand tons
a year. France and the US import the most, mostly
in juice form. The world record for the largest yuzubath
was achieved in twenty twenty two. So there's this chain
of public baths called montano U that had been trying
(10:24):
to break the record for a decade, and they got
locals around Yokohama to donate fruit and they wound up
for this record breaking bath with four thousand, five hundred
and seven yuzuo that is around one three hundred and
fifty kilos of fruit or three thousand pounds.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Now, people, did people get in this? I hope so?
Speaker 2 (10:50):
I hope so if not, that is silly.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
That's a shame. That would be a real shame.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
I hope people. Corgis everyone and shadow with yeah everyone, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
It sounds lovely. It does.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
It does also sounds sounding lovely. There are a couple
yuzu festivals every year, specifically in Koti Prefecture in Japan,
where fifty five percent of the country's usu comes from.
Those festivals both happen in late October to November in
line with the first harvest of the season. One in
Umaji celebrates the first juicing of the season and then
(11:36):
one in Kitagala honors this village leader from the mid
eighteen hundreds who like really encouraged yzu cultivation and its
use as a preservative and a seasoning that could be
produced locally as opposed to other things like like rice,
vinegar or miso that had to be imported from other areas.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
That sounds cool, both of those so cool, we do.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Oh my goodness, if, oh, if anyone has any experience
with any of this, please write in.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Oh, please please do. But in the meantime, we have
quite a history for you.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
We do, touching on several of these points in fact,
and we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from a quick break forward from
our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. Okay. So,
historians believe that yu zoo originated in East Asia. Some
speculate that it first grew in Korea that made its
way to China then over to Japan about a thousand
years ago. Others argue that it more likely originated in
China near the Yangsee River.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Either way, it also arrived in Japan pretty quickly.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah, yes, And like you said earlier, Lauren, it most
likely was the result of cross pollination of the mandarin
orange in the echung papeda via insects. A lot of
research into this very fascinating. Some speculate that ancient text
out of China detailing the cultivation and growth of something
(13:12):
called you yu actually refers to uzu. In the two
hundreds BCE, a Chinese text describes yuzu as something sweet
and sometimes sour, but also makes clear that there was
some confusion about what was being called you and that
there was at least two fruits going by the name
at the time, so still still a little confusion early on.
(13:37):
Yep In an eleven eight CE herbal out of China,
uzu is called by the name still used for it
in China today, So that indicates that they had kind
of arrived at what what about zoo at that point?
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yeah, The word uzuo is Japanese, though both the Japanese
and Korean root from an older Chinese term for the
free Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Yeah, fun with linguistics. Around thirteen hundred years ago, yuzu
was really flourishing in parts of Japan. According to some sources,
yuzu was largely cultivated for medicinal purposes at first there,
but over time, people started to really like the aromatics
of it. They liked how it tasted, so they started
(14:23):
using it in other ways, including cooking.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yeah, ponzu sauce is a little tricky to track down
the history of but it seems to have developed during
the edolp period, like the sixteen to eighteen hundreds when
the Dutch had a settlement in Nagasaki. And we think
that based on the etymology of panzu, which combines this
old Dutch word for punch like the drink pond with
(14:48):
a Japanese term for vinegar su sore. More mysteries with etymology.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Mysteries with etymology. I love it. Around the same time,
the winter solstice tradition of a yuzu bath is believed
to have originated. Yes, in the same period with the
introduction of the public bath, people believed that usu baths
promoted blood circulation and other health benefits. Honestly, they just
(15:18):
sound really nice to me. Yep. Yes. And then in
nineteen eighty two, some employees working at a zoo in
Japan noticed some of the capaberas huddled together in warm
water while their enclosure was being cleaned, and that gave
the people working there the idea to have a usu
bath for the animals during the winter. Yes, open to
(15:44):
public viewing. Oh yes, yes. It was a popular event,
and then other zoos started doing it. Beginning in twenty twenty,
Zoo started sharing videos of this online that racked up
millions of views, and of course that struck they did.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Oh yeah, for like, give me literally any serotonin.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Yes, Oh, capbera is in a uzu bath.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Yeah, lovely because and honestly, like capaberras and yuzu both
look like sort of like squished spheres a little bit,
so like they have this sort of similar shape and
like capa beeras are so chill to begin with.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Oh that sounds really wonderful.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Yeah, it's definitely and I've definitely seen some like little
like cartoons about it on the internet.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Anyway. Uh.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
The aforementioned village leader who encouraged cultivation of yuzu around
the mid eighteen hundreds, like probably around eighteen sixty, was
in fact a samurai, one naka Oka Shintaro, who later
helped overthrow the Tokugawa Shogunate.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
So there you go. Wow, yep, these these episodes go places,
They go places. Yes, And speaking of frank In Mayor,
an official from the USDA, discovered yuzuo while exploring in
China in nineteen fourteen.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Discovered in scare quotes, I mean it was already people
already knew it was there, but he ran across it.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
And furthermore, yes, it is that mayor, like the guy
that they named the Mayor Lemon after. He was a
spotanist who went on these plant collecting expeditions around Asia.
That's a separate, separate episode, possibly a separate podcast. Really
interesting guy anyway.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Yes, yes, well, he called yuzu the Kanzu orange. He
sent some seeds of the plant back to the US. However,
in nineteen twenty two, it was discovered that this orange
was the same as yuzu previously brought into the US
by Japanese immigrants for cooking. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
That being said, though, wild varieties of yuzu were being
discovered in China as late as nineteen thirteen. Wow. Cool, Yeah,
there's a lot of them.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Ko Chi Prefecture didn't really get into yuzu production again,
they are currently they make like over half of the
yuzu that Japan produces. They didn't really get into it
at all until the cedar logging industry started to decline
on their island. In the nineteen sixties, people started cultivating
(18:26):
local citrus like the yuzu, and it really took off.
A lot of yuzu was originally planted along the decommissioned
logging railway land because it was available and extensive, like
over two hundred and fifty kilometers of track, the longest
in western Japan when it was built in nineteen twenty nine.
(18:47):
And yeah, around like kind of right around that is
where a lot of the groves still are today. In
the nineteen seventies they did further get into like bottling
and selling yuzu based product and also agritourism.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Yes, and in recent years, yuzuo has seen growing popularity
outside of Asian communities where it has long been used.
A two thousand and three New York Times article tauted
it as a prized ingredient for chefs and they really
highlighted the scent loved it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Yeah. Around that same time, this three star Michelin restaurant
in Spain, l W was super excited about y zoo,
giving it further attention, and it was probably cross pollination there.
On the New York Times and all this attention. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Yes, and in the US it became something of a
darling in the burgeoning craft cocktail scene. It is something
I have seen a lot in in craft cocktails. Oh, certainly.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Yeah, it's tasty.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
It's yeah, it's good. A lot of cocktails have a
good citrus element. U zoo. There you go, here you go. Yes, well,
listeners as always, if you have more experience when it
comes to use you, if you have recipes, if you
have your favorite things, any festivals that we miss.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Oh yeah, if you've been to a Uzu bath, yes,
you have a Corgi I don't know.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Yeah, Serotonin's always good. Oh my goodness, yes, please write
in yes. But that is what we have to say
about Uzu for now. It is.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
We do already have some listener mail for you, though,
when we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from one more quick break for
a word from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes,
thank you, and we're back with school. He refreshing sour,
(21:04):
I have refreshing and both, yeah in a sour way. Yeah,
puckery citrus is generally like that.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, and wrote I've been going through a backlog of
older episodes and was struck by the Aside and your
Salisbury Stake episode about calling Docson's Liberty dogs. The Paw
Patrol movie, which came out the following year, introduced a
docs and character named Liberty. I think someone was making
(21:35):
a very obscure joke and thought you'd enjoy the last
I love it. There you go. Yeah, I bet they were.
We were just talking about SpongeBob. But a lot of
these kids shows there's there's in jokes, djo Oh absolutely, yeah,
(22:00):
big fit.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
I love it every time Pop Patrol or Bluey comes
up on this show.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
I feel like it's a lot.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah, and especially since that is not media that either
of us have consumed.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
No, but I enjoy learning about it.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Listeners, Yeah, and they're just ubiquitous.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
So right, Okay, Mark wrote, I'm a Newish listener enjoying
your back catalog and your Mustard episode made me think
you might be interested in the Northern Italian dish Mustarta.
It's kind of like chutney in a rough sense, and
it consists of candied fruits, quinces, apples, grapes, cherries, citrus,
et cetera. In sweetened mustard flavored syrup. My father is
(22:44):
from Amelia, Romagna, and I grew up in Italy and
the USA with mustarda around the house, eating it along
with boiled meats. But the combo of sharp mustard and
sweet fruit seems to really bewilder most people who aren't
from northern Italy like that area. Lombardia ven a'tah mustarda
di cremona is the easiest kind of fine. In the USA,
(23:04):
it's a little more mustardy, with transparent syrup and small
whole fruits, but there are others with different textures and
balances of sharp to sweet. In general, mustard like we
think of it in the US or France is pretty
rare in Italy, and in Italian it's called senepe so dijon.
Mustard is called senepe de dijon. So the similarity between
(23:26):
the words mustarta and mustard might cause a funny surprise
for some people. Thank you for your awesome show, and
I'm looking forward to someday hearing Annie's D and D
gaming podcast.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
I want to mess. That would be a fun Oh.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
A wonderful miss Oh it's so chaotic. Oh my goodness,
I have had mustarta ooh oh yeah. I think it
is part of like a charcoterie situation out at various
rest I've had a number of times around Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
It sounds good to me, like I can understand if
for people who are accustomed to having it on like
sandwiches or like in a very specific way here in
the US, that this could sound a little like oh
with fruit, with fruit a sweet element, what I know.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
No, to me, that sounds great, sure, And I do
think that that some like yellow mustards, like frenches, are
a little like do have like a sweet element.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
To them any bit?
Speaker 2 (24:26):
So, so I don't think I mean also, I just
I mean as I as I said in our mustard episode,
I just really like mustard. Yeah, that's why I chose
it as my birthday episode that year, and it was
like for your birthday, what do you want to talk about?
I was like, mustard, Oh yeah, that's great. And I
(24:50):
do also love combinations of sweet with other flavors that
but yeah, like we're getting into in the US, but
I think are a lot common and other quiz gains.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Yeah, yes, I enjoy it too well. Thank you to
both of these listeners for writing in if you would
like to write to us, you can Our email is
hello at savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
When we are also on social media, you can find
us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at saver pod and
we do hope to hear from you. Savor is production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, you can visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our superproducers Dylan
Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and
(25:37):
we hope that lots more good things are coming your
way
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Dylan Fagan
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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